J64SLI 2015 Independence

J64SLI callsign is a special callsign the holder is J69DS and it is only valid from 21 to 27 February 2015!

The 2015 Independence event was planned well ahead of time and we were all ready and excited to use a special call! Not just a special call but a new wpx!! The first ever assigned J64 prefix!

Ian on 40m: first station on air

We planned to be on the camp site for 4:30 am, the camp site being just north of Pigeon Point Beach right on the waterfront. With our vehicles loaded and ready we left at 4 am and got there well before our planned time. We started putting up the 40 meter vertical up first, I had it pre-cut but un-tuned so we used analyzer and got it all tuned up with one radial. Added the remaining radials and 40 was ready. We put up a table added Ernest’s portable setup (radio and battery) hooked up and put j66cd Ian on the mic. He made two calls and worked K0QWB as the first contact with J64SLI! He worked a few and then had Japan (JA2BAY) coming in!
We left Ian on the mic and proceeded to put up buddipole verticals on 15, 20, 10 meters all the antennae spaced out as far as the location and coax would allow us. We then proceeded to put up a tarpaulin as a roof to get Ian (who was operating right through in the sun by now) out of the sun. then we setup up the ‘kitchen’ and the then the tents… by midmorning we had the

Ian on 40m no shelter yet!

site up! I had to do the second trip to bring down Filita (my xyl) with all the food stuff. We all had breakfast on her arrival and then Ernest went to pick up his xyl Fay (J69EJ).
We switched Ian to 15 meters and Ernest went on 10M and myself onto 20M so we had three stations right through the day. By end of day Ophi (J66CD xyl) also joined us on site. We were also joined by my sons and daughter for the afternoon into evening, they did not overnight though.
In the evening we worked 20 and 40 meters after 10 and 15 closed down fairly early on us.
The first night we got serious rains in the wee hours of the morning. so we had to scramble with the extra tarps to keep all the equipment dry. We were really cold by then, and Filita got up and made some nice cacao tea for us to warm up again.
Ernest went to get and hour and half of shut eye, we were still on 40 meters going strong. When he got up Ian went horizontal for a short. I myself went around 5 am and got a few hours.
We watched the weather with a wary eye and decided if it did not improve (it was grey and light shower every so often) we would lift camp towards end of day. By midday it cleared up and we decided we would stay till Monday as planned.
We ran 10 15 20 all day, by early afternoon when propagation was poor we all took a short rest, when I realized no radio on air I decided to put a 12

12 m budipole

meter vertical buddipole on a dolica up. I mounted it against the tent and the antenna was only five feet of the ground! The radial I tied to a big water bottle and I went on twelve : twelve was on fire. When Ian woke up I handed him the mic and told him have at it!
Ernest decided to go to the neighbouring beach mobile also on 12M and he had some fun there.
Evening time we were on 20 and 40 again with 40 throughout the night!
Early morning we stayed on 40 and the other bands did not pick up.
By 9 we had breakfast and we started breaking camp. By the way breaking down takes way more time than putting up, we got it all squared away, loaded the cars up and realized Ernest would have to do two trips. But like magic j66cf Francis showed up and he would do the extra trip! Nice timing Francis!

camp!

We all headed to our qth’s and I know we all crashed for the afternoon! by evening we were all back on the air from our qth’s 🙂
For the week days we were on as much as we could before after and in between work.
We ended the week by all meeting up at the qth of J69DS Frans had a few beers but only after Ian J66CD worked 12 meters and 15 meters with a huge pile up from Japan. He even worked Korea!!

We had some very nice dx stations check in with us, and we had a ball all around doing what J6 Portable does best: PORTABLE !

This was the second first by the group, the first one was the first j62 prefix with j62yota!